KARACHI, May 5: The Deputy Speaker of Sindh Assembly, Rahila Tiwana, has said that the government was also planning setting up of advisory committees, comprising sincere and honest people, NGOs and other stakeholders, to monitor working of various government institutions and check any misuse of resources by functionaries.

She was speaking at the concluding session of the three-day workshop on capacity building of voluntary social welfare agencies. The workshop was organized jointly by the National Council of Social Welfare (NCSW) and the Education Foundation.

Highlighting the importance of women education, Ms Tiwana pointed out that children, male or female, were always brought up first by mothers and if mothers were imparted education on priority basis, they could groom their children more properly and perfectly.

Appreciating the conduct of the workshop, she suggested that such training courses should be organized in the rural areas also as majority of the country’s population lived in rural areas where a large number of NGOs were rendering their valuable services silently and sincerely. She stressed the need for imparting training to these NGOs in approaching and convincing donors and other agencies interested in public welfare.

Referring to a suggestion, put forward by a speaker at the workshop, Ms Tiwana said that the government was already providing all possible assistance to encourage genuine NGOs which came forward and patronize educational institutions with an aim of bringing about improvement.

She agreed with the views of one of the speakers that performance of certain government organizations was not satisfactory. She name one such organizations as the Sindh Education Foundation (SEF) and remarked that it was not doing the needful i.e. providing assistance and funds to the deserving people approaching it. She was of the view that the SEF had adopted a cumbersome and lengthy procedure which usually caused disappointment and frustration to the applicants. Ultimately, she added, millions of rupees given every year to the SEF remained unutilized. She pledged measures to ensure that the SEF funds were released to the deserving people in future.

The deputy speaker said that she had a bad experience during her Sunday’s visit to the mental hospital in Hyderabad. She said she was shocked to see how the patients were being treated there. She deplored the indifferent attitude of the staff towards the inmates and said that she would convey her impressions to the concerned authorities in order to ensure corrective measures.

Commenting on the ongoing impasse in the parliament, Ms Tiwana said that the government wanted law-making process to be started but certain elements were creating hurdles in this regard. These elements, she said, did not want development and progress to continue in the country. She, however, hoped that the government would soon be able to end the impasse.

She urged NGOs and individuals to put forward their suggestions with regard to the problems pertaining to the troublesome laws and difficult official procedures so that these could be simplified and made people-friendly.

Earlier, Sardar Yasin Malik of the Sindh Education Foundation observed that thousands of government schools in the province were not functioning properly. He suggested that such schools be handed over to some willing and genuine NGOs, CBOs, or honest people in the larger interest of the masses.

He maintained that the government alone, with its limited resources, could not cope with the situation and that a partnership between public and private sectors was essential for social development. The government, he said, could monitor the performance of a school for a short period starting from their takeover by any NGO with minimal interference in its operation. After that period, he added, the position could be reviewed to decide whether to continue the arrangement or otherwise.

Speaking on the occasion, S. M. A. Sabzwari of the NCSW said that training courses for the NGOs had already been held in Islamabad and whereas more were scheduled to be held in Faisalabad, Jhang and other cities. After the training, he added, some programmes would be planned for the NGOs’ working in the rural areas.

Many of the speakers were of the view that if the government and NGOs worked together effectively, they could easily resolve all the issues confronting the masses.

Among others who spoke on the occasion were Siddiq Shaikh, Farhana Iqbal, Tanweer Ishrat, Farida Abbasi.

Later, Ms Tiwana distributed certificates among the participants of the course which was conducted by Rizwana Khan and Anis Danish.